Gabby Douglas
Gabby Douglas is an American artistic gymnast. As a member of the U.S. Women's Gymnastics team at the 2012 Summer Olympics, she won gold medals in both the individual and team all-around competitions. Douglas is the first woman of color and the first African-American gymnast in Olympic history to become the individual all-around champion, and the first American gymnast to win gold in both the individual all-around and team competitions at the same Olympics as well as being the only American All-Around Champion to win multiple gold medals, thus far. She was also a member of the gold-winning U.S. team at the 2011 World Championships. She appears as herself in the episode Gabby's Gold. Trivia *Gabby’s nickname is The Flying Squirrel! Olympic coaching legend and current team coordinator Márta Károlyi gave her the nickname because of the way she soars through the air in her uneven bars routine. *Gabby definitely loves fictional vampires. Her favorite book is Twilight and her favorite TV show is The Vampire Diaries. *She’s the first African-American gymnast to make the Olympic team since three-time Olympian Dominique Dawes made her final Olympic appearance in 2000. Gabby recently got to meet Dominique! *She comes from a seriously athletic family! Her older sister Arielle is a ballroom dancer, her other older sister is a figure skater and her older brother Jonathan is into football, track and karate. *After winning the Olympic Trials in San Jose earlier this month, Brie was the only Olympic hopeful with a guaranteed spot on the team (the rest had to be chosen by a committee). She edged out the favorite to win, Jordyn Wieber (who beat Gabby at the AT&T American Cup by 0.2 points earlier this year), by a of a point. *She’s totally tech-savvy! Gabby’s dad is in the military, so she kept in touch with him via Skype and email during his three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. *She’s a total chocoholic (what girl isn’t). Gabby recently dished, “I am a chocolate fiend. I love chocolate everything, whether it’s white chocolate, dark chocolate, milk chocolate. I love chocolate, okay?” *When she’s not busting her butt in the gym, she loves to go fishing with her dad and siblings. Her favorite fishing memory was when everyone was catching fish but her… until her dad pointed out that there was no bait on her hook. #thatawkwardmomentwhen *Gabby is from Virginia Beach, but lives with a host family 1,200 miles away from home in Des Moines, Iowa so she can train with her coach Liang Chow, who also coached 2008 Olympic gold medalist Shawn Johnson! At home, Gabby is the youngest of four siblings, but when she’s with her host family, she gets to play big sister to four younger girls. When she came home after trials, her host family decorated their front door to welcome her back! *Gabby is on the current covers of both Time and Sports Illustrated magazines. Pretty cool, huh? Info from Teen.com Life and career Douglas was born on December 31, 1995 in Virginia Beach, Virginia to parents Timothy Douglas and Natalie Hawkins. She has three siblings. She began training in gymnastics at age six when her older sister, Arielle, convinced their mother to enroll her in gymnastics classes. In October 2002, Douglas began her gymnastics training at Gymstrada Gymnastics in Virginia Beach, Virginia. In July 2004, Gabrielle left Gymstrada and began training at Excalibur Gymnastics. At the age of eight, Douglas won the Level 4 all-around gymnastics title at the 2004 Virginia State Championships. 2008 Douglas made her national debut in 2008 at the US Classic in Houston, Texas, where she placed 10th in the all-around rankings. She went on to compete at the 2008 Visa Championships in Boston, Massachusetts. Placing at #16 in that competition, Douglas was not eligible for the 2008 Junior Women's National Team. 2009 In 2009, Gabrielle suffered a fracture in the growth plate of her wrist. Due to this injury, she was largely unable to compete and missed the 2009 CoverGirl US Classic. While she competed at the 2009 Visa Championships in Dallas, Texas, Douglas was unable to perform her full routines and competed only on Balance Beam and Floor Exercise. 2010 Douglas competed at the 2010 Nastia Liukin Supergirl Cup, a televised Level 10 meet held in Worcester, Massachusetts, where Douglas placed fourth all-around. Her first elite meet was the 2010 CoverGirl Classic in Chicago, Illinois, where Douglas placed third on balance beam, 6th on vault and 9th all-around in the junior division. At the 2010 U.S. Junior National Championships, Douglas won the silver medal on balance beam, placed fourth all-around and on vault, and tied for eighth on floor exercise. At the 2010 Pan American Championships in Guadalajara, Mexico, Douglas won theuneven bars title, and she won a share of the U.S. team gold medal. She also placed fifth all-around. In October, at age 14, Douglas moved from Virginia Beach to West Des Moines, Iowa to train under Liang Chow, the former coach of 2007 World Champion and 2008 Summer Olympics gold medalist Shawn Johnson. Although Douglas' former coach, Walker, stated in 2012 that she was convinced Douglas could have made it to the Olympics if she had remained in Virginia Beach, Douglas said, "Something clicked in my head that said, if I really want to make this happen I need to get better coaching." The impetus for Douglas's move to Iowa was when Walker had invited Chow to teach a clinic at her gym, Excalibur. Douglas was impressed when Chow was able to teach her how to perform the Amanar vault in a single afternoon. Douglas considered a move to Texas to train with a renowned coach there, but after that coach declined to train her out of loyalty to Walker, Douglas selected Chow. Chow was initially skeptical, since Douglas had been just one of hundreds of kids at the clinic in Virginia Beach. However, Chow subsequently informed Douglas's Excalibur coaches that he had agreed to train her, but pointed out that he did not recruit her, saying, "I would never recruit anybody to my program." 2011 At the City of Jesolo Trophy in Italy, Douglas won a share of the U.S. team gold medal. She also placed second on floor, tied for third on beam, and placed fourth in the all-around and on vault. Douglas earned the silver medal in uneven bars at the CoverGirl Classic in Chicago. At the 2011 U.S. National Championships in St. Paul, Minnesota, Douglas tied for third on bars and placed seventh all-around. At the 2011 World Championships in Tokyo, Japan, Douglas shared in the team gold medal won by the U.S. Douglas also placed fifth in uneven bars. 2012 At the AT&T American Cup at Madison Square Garden in March, Douglas received the highest total all-around score in the women's competition, ahead of her teammate and current world champion Jordyn Wieber. However, her scores did not count towards winning the competition because she was an alternate. Later in March, she was part of the gold-winning U.S. team at the Pacific Rim Championships, where she also won gold in uneven bars. Douglas at the Secret U.S. Classic in 2012 At the 2012 U.S. National Championships in June, Douglas won the gold medal in uneven bars, silver in the all-around, and bronze in floor. Márta Károlyi, the National Team Coordinator for USA Gymnastics, nicknamed Douglas the "Flying Squirrel" for her aerial performance on the uneven bars. At the 2012 Olympic Trials held in San Jose, California on July 1st, Gabrielle placed first in the all-around rankings, securing the only guaranteed spot on the Women's Olympic Gymnastic Team. Also in July, Douglas and her teammates were featured on the cover of''Sports Illustrated'' Olympic Preview issue. This marked the first time an entire Olympic gymnastics team had been featured on the cover of the magazine. She appeared on Rock Center with Brian Williams on July 19, where she discussed her family background and Olympic ambitions. On July 20, Douglas was featured on one of five Time magazine Olympic covers. Summer Olympics Douglas and her teammates, McKayla Maroney, Aly Raisman, Kyla Ross and Jordyn Wieber (nicknamed the "Fierce Five"), won the team all-around gold medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics.[28][29] She then won the gold medal in the individual all-around, becoming the first African-American woman, as well as the first woman of color of any nationality, to win the event. She is also the first American gymnast ever to win both the team and individual all-around gold at the same Olympics. Douglas finished eighth in uneven bars. She is the first all-around champion to not medal in an individual event since women's gymnastics was added to the Olympics in 1952. On August 3, the Kellogg Company announced that it would feature a picture of Douglas standing on the podium with her gold medal on special-edition boxes of Corn Flakes in the fall. This breaks the tradition of Olympic athletes appearing on Wheaties boxes. On August 13, Douglas appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, which also featured U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama. On August 26, Douglas spoke about racist bullying at Excalibur Gymnastics in an interview with Oprah Winfrey and how it nearly made her quit the sport. She described an incident in which she had heard other girls at the gym say "Why doesn’t Gabby do it? She’s our slave” when chalk needed to be scraped off the bars. Official Account * Gabby Douglass on Twitter * Gabby Douglass on Facebook * Gabby Douglass on Instagram * Gabby Douglass on Insstar.com * Gabby Douglass on Instagweb.com * Gabby Douglass on Buzzcent.com * Gabby Douglass on Insstars.com * Gabby Douglass on Photostags.com External Links *Official Twitter *IMDb